Search Result

Search Tags: SES

Last spring, as across-the-board budget cuts roiled through agencies across government, the White House decided to cancel the monetary portion of the Presidential Rank Awards, which granted recipients as much as 35 percent of their salary in a one-time bonus. But the White House maintained it was "focused on finding means to acknowledge excellence in non-monetary ways." The Senior Executives Association (SEA), in a statement released Monday said it still hasn't heard from President Barack Obama on those alternatives.

The Obama administration trying a different tack on federal-employee bonuses and awards in fiscal 2014. A new directive from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management continues clear-cut spending caps on employee awards but won't outright ban them -- even if the across-the-board spending constraints, known as sequestration, continue.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wants to know whether many of the federal government's Senior Executive Service members are deserving of the bonus payments they receive. McCaskill, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight, wrote to the head of the Government Accountability Office, asking the watchdog agency to investigate whether bonuses paid to SES employees involved in contract management are effective tools in reducing costs or improving contract performance.

What do you get when you put a group of Senior Executive Service members in a room together? A lot of straight talk about managing the short-term and long-term challenges of sequestration. Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, says the federal managers that participated in the recent discussion came up with real conclusions that "need to be said and heard."

When it comes to salaries, federal executives are somewhere between Wall Street and Wal-Mart. But a new study shows that government execs are unhappy and worried about the future for themselves and their agencies, according to Senior Correspondent Mike Causey.

A new report by the Partnership for Public Service and McKinsey and Company found inconsistencies among agencies in how they recruit and develop their Senior Executive Service members. That lack of standardized leadership development is causing some to question whether senior executives will be prepared to replace long-time managers who are retiring at a fast rate.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and the GSA inspector general released separate, but related, reports that show GSA abused its authority to give Senior Executive Service (SES) members bonuses between 2009 and 2011. GSA official said they have since fixed these problems. McCaskill also found that on average the Labor Department, the Navy and the National Science Foundation handed out more than one bonus per SES employee.

The Obama administration has set its sights on more than a dozen national priorities, such as cybersecurity and energy efficiency, that cut across federal agency missions. But the government lacks a dedicated team of senior executives willing to break out of the agency mold to implement those goals, according to a new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government. The author of the report, Bruce Barkley, told Federal News Radio his proposals for redesigning the Senior Executive Service.